


That One Last Tender Place (To Sink His Teeth In)

by philalethia



Series: Show and Noise [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Biting, Bloodplay, Dirty Talk, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Kink Negotiation, Knifeplay, M/M, Painplay, Possessive Behavior, Sadomasochism, Scars, Scratching, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 13:42:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philalethia/pseuds/philalethia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John has an occasional kink for pain, Sherlock finds out and begins acting oddly, and John quickly becomes (pleasantly) overwhelmed. Lighthearted painplay fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That One Last Tender Place (To Sink His Teeth In)

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: There is explicit description in this story of a person being hurt, and particularly cut, for (consensual) sexual pleasure. If you think this may be distressing or triggering for you, I strongly advise you not to read.

John Watson was not, on the whole, especially shy about his body. He knew it was obvious from his physique that he wasn’t as young as he used to be, of course, that he’d got a bit soft around the middle and lost some of his muscle definition, but even so, he didn’t see much point to being shy about how he looked with his clothes off.

Still, John preferred to have some say in who saw him unclothed and to have some advanced notice about when they did so. So when Sherlock barged into the bathroom while John stood in front of the mirror, shaving, wearing only his pants, John had to suppress the urge to shout and grab a towel and cover himself.

“Privacy, Sherlock,” he sighed. “I’m sure we’ve discussed it.”

“I asked you a question,” Sherlock answered calmly, “and you didn’t respond.”

“You mean you asked me a question while I _wasn’t in the room_?”

But Sherlock didn’t seem to be paying much attention any longer. Instead, he was staring rather intently at John’s pants—no, John realised a moment later, John’s _thigh_. John tried to turn his body, to obscure Sherlock’s view, but of course the damage was done: Sherlock had already spotted and probably made a hundred deductions about the column of faint scars at the very top of his right thigh. He’d likely even caught sight of the half dozen other similar scars scattered about John’s torso and made a hundred deductions about those as well.

“Interesting,” Sherlock said, head cocked thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t have thought you were the type.”

Then, without another word, Sherlock turned and practically waltzed out, slamming the door behind him.

John glanced at his reflection in the mirror, at the patches of shaving cream and the flush beginning to spread across his face between them. “You didn’t even ask your question,” John shouted through the door, but Sherlock did not respond.

*

When John emerged from the bathroom, he found Sherlock at the desk in the sitting room, hands bridged beneath his chin as he perused something on his laptop (his own, for once). He didn’t so much as glance up at John’s appearance.

John suspected it was not a good idea to reopen the topic when Sherlock seemed content to let it remain closed. Still, a thought had occurred while he’d finished shaving, and he felt it was important enough to mention. He didn’t want Sherlock getting the wrong idea, after all.

 “They weren’t self-inflicted,” he told Sherlock.

Sherlock closed his eyes and dropped his head back with a scowl. “Obviously,” he said, in that low drawl that meant John was being tediously dull again. “From the angle of the scars, they couldn’t possibly have been. No, I suspect the cutting was done by someone sitting or kneeling above you.”

He was spot-on, as usual. John had been lying on his back, and Mary, his then-girlfriend, had knelt between his spread thighs and cut him slowly with a razor blade, her face scrunched in intense concentration. She’d worried about cutting him too deep, so close to his femoral artery, and although she had been pressing far too lightly to do that much damage, her caution—her fear that she could—had been intoxicating. John had tossed off to the memory, rubbing the healing wounds with his free hand, for weeks afterwards.

“Right,” John said. He felt a bit awkward now that the memory was fresh in his mind. “Good.”

“Is it the pain,” Sherlock asked, eyes still closed, “or the submissiveness of your position in the act that appeals to you?”

And that, well, that seemed a bit private to John, Sherlock requesting details about John’s sexual kinks, but John knew that if he didn’t answer or—god forbid—if he tried to evade, he’d soon have something of a bloodhound for a flatmate, looking to suss out the answer himself.

“The pain,” he admitted. In fact, submissiveness didn’t even enter into it.

“Hmm.”

Sherlock seemed to ponder that a moment, then leant forward, reopened his eyes, and returned his attention to his computer.

Believing the issue to be dealt with, and thankful that it hadn’t been as bad as it could have been, John turned to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

*

It wasn’t until a week later that John began to notice Sherlock was acting oddly.

First, John started to find more seemingly random items than usual lying about the flat: a scalpel balanced on the bathroom sink beside John’s toothbrush, a small Bowie knife propped against the wall behind the kettle, Sherlock’s riding crop placed lengthwise in the centre of the sofa.

John initially attributed the new clutter to some sort of experiment. After all, there had been several parcels delivered to Sherlock recently, and any time John ventured too close or touched one, Sherlock promptly shooed him off and made a show of cradling the parcel protectively as he carried it to his bedroom. Sherlock had done similar things previously when he brought particularly dangerous or sensitive materials into the flat which he suspected John would disapprove of and force him to bin. (Which John occasionally did.)

So John expected to be woken one night by a loud explosion from the kitchen or to come home one day to find a strange smell permeating the flat, but so far, nothing had happened.

Then, at a crime scene that Lestrade had summoned them to, Sherlock’s odd behaviour escalated rather drastically.

“Dear god,” he was saying, throwing his hands up in exasperation, “I’d forgotten how slowly your tiny little brains work. He can’t have hanged himself. Look at the _cigar ends_. No, not _those_.”

John had glanced, as had Lestrade, to the dead man’s large and expensive-looking ceramic ashtray on the table beside where the body still dangled from the light fixture, but Sherlock clasped John’s wrist strongly enough that John could practically hear his carpals grinding against each other and could certainly feel them protest at the grip.

“Ow—Christ, Sherlock,” John growled, but Sherlock ignored him and dragged him over to the fireplace while Lestrade watched, looking as baffled as John felt.

“ _There_ ,” Sherlock insisted, letting go of John’s wrist.

But he didn’t accompany the order with any sort of gesture, nor did he look anywhere except into John’s face, so John didn’t have a clue what he was meant to be noticing. He searched the mantel for another ashtray he might have overlooked, and Sherlock sighed in disgust.

“No, not there. _There._ ”

Then Sherlock’s hand was at his nape, gripping a tuft of hair painfully—John actually worried for a moment or two that Sherlock was about to rip it out—and forcing his head to bow until John was looking down into the fireplace itself, where there were a small assortment of cigar ends among the ashes.

“None of that now,” Lestrade said sternly, as John let out a pained hiss. “We may be idiots compared to you, but you don’t have to drag us around like animals.”

At that point, John began to understand what Sherlock was trying to do. Sherlock “accidentally”—using the fakest stumble John had ever witnessed as a cover—shoving John face-first into a wall as they left only confirmed it.

“All right,” he snapped, shoving Sherlock off. “That’s it. What have I said about using me for experiments?”

Sherlock swallowed, looking faintly alarmed at John’s furious tone. “Was that a rhetorical question? I haven’t used you for any experiments,” Sherlock protested, following John out of the house and onto the pavement outside. “John. What—”

“No.” John stopped, spun around angrily, then had to remind himself that he did not want to make a scene in the middle of Brook Street, especially not about this. He withheld his desire to yell and stepped close so that he could speak quietly and still be heard. “No, Sherlock, just... don’t. First of all, I’m not going to get aroused every time I get hurt or every time I see a knife somewhere in the flat; that’s not how it works. Second, it’s _not good_ —no, it’s _more_ than not good—to base an experiment around your flatmate’s very private interests, Sherlock. Which you shouldn’t have even known about to begin with, except you have no sense of personal boundaries or privacy and there aren’t enough locks in the flat!”

John’s voice has risen considerably on the final sentence, enough that passersby were staring curiously at the two of them, and throughout the short diatribe, Sherlock’s expression shifted from faintly alarmed to very alarmed to alarmingly inscrutable.

“Are you finished?” he asked coolly when John said nothing else.

John wasn’t, really. He still had a few choice words for Sherlock, although he also had enough presence of mind to realise he might later regret saying any of them. So he merely nodded curtly.

“We can discuss this later,” Sherlock said. John could practically see him shelving the issue in his mind palace, making room for the case they still needed to solve.

“Right,” John agreed, although he hoped they wouldn’t need to. Really, he just wanted Sherlock to drop the whole thing and for them to carry on as usual.

*

By that evening, John had a yellow bruise on either side of his wrist, which he found, well, uncomfortably appealing. He prodded them occasionally, feeling them ache just a bit if he pressed hard enough, although he only dared when Sherlock was out of the room. He dreaded to imagine what Sherlock would think if he caught John at it.

Of course, even when Sherlock was in the room, he paid little attention to John, sprawled as he was across the sofa, sulking because Lestrade had taken over the case once the killers had been identified rather than allowing Sherlock to assist in the pursuit. Then, when John returned later with take-away, Sherlock had holed himself up in his bedroom for what was doubtlessly an even deeper sulk, so John left him alone. He ate, stored the leftovers in the fridge, posted a quick blog entry about the case, and decided he should go to bed soon, as he had an early shift at the clinic the following day.

After John had climbed the stairs and entered his bedroom, he found an assortment of objects arranged in two neat rows on top of the duvet. In the bottom row, at the edge of the bed, were a scalpel, a package of single-edge razor blades, a small Bowie knife, and a hunting knife with a folding blade. In the top row were a leather flogger, a riding crop, a rattan cane, and a wooden paddle.

It was, without a doubt, the filthiest display John had ever seen, as well as the most bewildering. That Sherlock had arranged this, likely while John had gone for take-away, John had no doubt, but where and when had Sherlock bought it all? And, more importantly, _why_?

As John stood in awe of the buffet for masochists laid out on his bed, his phone, held lightly in his left hand, buzzed with an incoming text: _You should know by now what a mistake it is to theorise without all the facts. Good night. SH_.

*

By the next morning, John thought he understood, finally, so when Sherlock emerged from his bedroom, wearing his blue dressing gown over his pyjamas, while John was making tea, John let him have it.

He put every bit of incredulousness he felt in his pose and in his tone when he asked, “Did you seriously just spend the last week trying to woo me by appealing to my masochism?”

Sherlock pressed his lips together in a thin line, and his gaze began to roam across everything in the kitchen aside from John. “Well,” he said slowly, “in a manner of speaking, I suppose.”

“Really, Sherlock, that’s….” John struggled to define what it was. Odd and confusing, certainly, but also somewhat… endearing, he supposed, the way it was endlessly endearing when Sherlock turned out to be less-than-brilliant at some things, like speaking to small children.

“I wanted you to know that I am capable of hurting you and that I have—or can easily acquire—everything I might need to do so,” Sherlock said.

Like some sort of perverted attempt to show your mate that you can provide for them, which meant the blades and toys displayed on John’s bed must have been his version of sending John flowers, John thought, which made him want to giggle, but he suspected that wouldn’t go over well. Not when, Christ, Sherlock was still not looking at him, like this actually meant something to him, more than whatever sort of strange fascination he’d developed with John’s occasional kink for pain.

“Sherlock, I’m not sure,” he said, trying to sound gentle, “that you’ve thought this through.”

Sherlock’s jaw clenched, and he scrunched his face in distaste before he answered. “Finish making your tea. You’ve a shift at the surgery soon, and if you don’t hurry, you’ll be late.”

Then he turned on his heels and strode back to his bedroom, where he slammed the door behind him, leaving John alone and bewildered yet again.

*

John worked a full eight hours that day, and during that time, Sherlock sent him nine texts, each one dirtier than the last.

_I’ve thought of little else this week, aside from the case of course. Would be interested to hear how this qualifies as having not ‘thought this through’. SH_

_Surely you’re not such an idiot that you think I’m only curious about your masochistic tendencies. SH_

_What am I saying? Of course you are. These tendencies of yours don’t extend to humiliation, do they? Could be fun, watching you squirm as I berate you. SH_

_You didn’t respond to any of my earlier attempts at ‘wooing’. This was merely a new and more interesting avenue. SH_

_I should have known you’d like sex with a touch of danger. You are a marvel, John. You always surprise me. SH_

_What have you done, aside from blades? What have you liked? Would you let me suck bruises along your back? SH_

_That’s a longtime fantasy, I admit. My initials in bruises on your skin. SH_

_I’ve spent days imagining all the ways I could hurt you and all the ways you could love it. SH_

_I want to cut you, then fondle the wounds while I bugger myself on your prick. Oh, the sounds you’ll make when you come. SH_

Standing stupidly on the pavement outside the clinic, picturing the scene Sherlock had described in his final text—perhaps Sherlock would lose himself in the sensations and clutch at John, fingers scrambling and clawing at John’s stinging, still-bleeding skin as he fucked himself harder and harder, oh, John could almost feel it—John began to realise the situation was swiftly flying out of his control.

*

John returned to the flat to find Sherlock draped across the sofa in his dressing gown and, judging by his bare legs and bare chest, little else. He was staring up at the ceiling, stroking the flat of a scalpel blade back and forth along his bottom lip.

John sighed and thought about banging his head against a wall. “ _Sherlock_.”

Sherlock kept his gaze on the ceiling. “Mm?”

“You sexted me while I was working.” John kept his voice sharp and disapproving, trying to give no indication that he had spent much of his return to the flat with a prominent erection and a mind filled with filthy, bloody images.

“I did. Problem?”

“Yes. Don’t do it again.”

Sherlock sighed as though John had just burdened him tremendously. “Oh all right. I’ll restrict my ‘sexting’ to times when you’re not working.”

John marched over to the sofa and plucked the scalpel from Sherlock’s hand, frowning pointedly when Sherlock finally deigned to look at him. “That wasn’t what I meant, Sherlock. I’m not…. Look, the pain kink is only an occasional thing. It’s not something I want constantly. So if you’re looking for—”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Yes, obvious. You like to pretend otherwise, but you’re bored nearly as easily as I am. Your interests cycle just as mine do. So we can indulge this one a bit and then move on. Stop being difficult, John; it’s the perfect relationship.”

And that, the word “relationship” coming from the mouth of Sherlock Holmes, that was alarming. Sherlock had difficulty admitting friendships were his area; his ease in admitting that relationships were, was utterly unprecedented. John shook his head, baffled, and then suddenly Sherlock was sitting up and snatching the scalpel back from John’s grasp.

“Do you know what I did while you were gone?” he asked. He sat back, scalpel returning to his lips and his legs spreading. He really wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing beneath the dressing gown; his cock was tenting the silk, and John could see his bollocks in the part in the fabric just below.

Really, John thought, the scalpel had nothing on the way Sherlock looked—and looked at him—right then.

“You mean beside the texting?” John asked. His voice was low and thick, a little breathless, and he realised that if he sounded aroused to himself, there was no way Sherlock hadn’t noticed.

“In addition to the texting, yes.” Sherlock reached for him with one hand, and after a long moment of resisting his pull, John allowed himself to be drawn closer, until he was standing between Sherlock’s legs, which Sherlock hiked up until they were bent almost to his chest, exposing himself entirely. “Come here.”

Forcing him to bend forward, Sherlock tugged John’s hand between his thighs and brushed John’s fingertips against his perineum and then his arsehole, which was loose and positively soaked with lube. John sucked in a breath through his teeth and found himself going to his knees. He hit the floor too hard and made a soft, pained sound at the impact.

“Oh,” Sherlock breathed, sounding enraptured, and his right leg dropped over John’s shoulder, bringing him close enough that John could suck and lick at his prick—or his hole—if he leant forward just slightly. “John, let me hurt you. Please, just—” He twirled the scalpel along his bottom lip to get John’s attention; it was a miracle he didn’t slice himself in the process. “One cut, that’s all, and I’ll let you fuck me.”

It was a horrible idea, of course. John had spent the entire walk back to the flat reminding himself—or perhaps _convincing_ himself—of all the ways that entering into a sexual relationship with his flatmate would go badly. Particularly because John had a tendency to become attached, especially when pain and kink were involved, and Sherlock, well… John didn’t know about Sherlock. Which meant that John could have certain figurative parts of his anatomy very broken indeed if this went poorly.

But Sherlock was staring at John with the same intensity he devoted to exceptionally complex puzzles and gruesome murders, and he had touched himself, opened himself, while thinking of John—more specifically, of _hurting_ John.

It was a horrible idea, but now, it also seemed quite fantastic. After all, John had always liked situations that could end very, very messily.

John took the scalpel again and this time tossed it across the floor until it was a good distance away from them both. Sherlock growled angrily at the move. “I’m not letting you near me with a blade,” John told him. He nearly continued, told Sherlock that he likely didn’t have a bloody clue what to do with one and John wasn’t in the mood to teach him, but that would put Sherlock in a strop for the rest of the night.

“John, please,” said Sherlock, practically whinging as he squirmed, the heel of his foot digging indignantly into John’s back.

John shrugged Sherlock’s knee from his shoulder so he could remove his jumper, then the shirt beneath it. Sherlock watched him, wide-eyed, although his eyelids fluttered shut when John’s fingers returned to his slick arsehole and slid inside.

“Oh,” Sherlock moaned, thighs spreading wider as he began to bugger himself. He looked positively whorish, rubbing his arse all over John’s knuckles. “Let me hurt you. I don’t think you understand how badly I want it, John, _oh_.”

“You have nails,” John reminded him. “Go on then.” Then he leant forward to swallow Sherlock’s prick.

It lasted all of one minute, with Sherlock making continuous soft, open-mouthed cries and clawing at John’s upper back like a man would claw at a ledge to keep from slipping. It was glorious. Sherlock shook as he came, and the scratches stung like Sherlock had broken through skin.

“What else?” Sherlock said after. He practically threw John to the floor so he could climb on top of him, pawing impatiently at John’s zip while John tried to shove Sherlock’s dressing gown off his shoulders. “What else can I do?”

A hand in Sherlock’s curls, John nudged Sherlock to his right shoulder just as Sherlock’s fingers closed around his prick, which was so, so hard and dribbling precome all over John’s trousers. “Bite me,” John told him.

Sherlock did, softly at first, more mouth than teeth, and then gradually harder when John sighed in pleasure and his cock dribbled more precome onto Sherlock’s palm.

By the time that John came, his skin was throbbing from the sensitive spot on his neck just beneath his ear all the way down to his collarbone. Sherlock nipped painfully at his throat and dug the nails of his free hand into John’s bicep and whimpered loudly, like a man who’d just been gifted with something he needed very, very much.

*

The next day, the damage on John’s right shoulder looked brutal, even worse than his scarred left one. Sherlock had bitten through the skin in two places—which John would have to get antibiotics for, as the human mouth was teeming with bacteria—and most of the rest were bruised black and purple, all with obvious teeth marks.

His back, too, was well marked from Sherlock’s nails, and Sherlock had broken through skin there as well. John couldn’t see it as easily as he could his shoulder, of course, although when the water hit his back during his morning shower, it had hurt so badly he couldn’t help but cry out and hiss in pain.

In short, John looked like he’d been mauled, and Sherlock seemed to find that fact utterly arresting.

He took a series of photographs with his phone, while John squirmed on the duvet and sighed and wondered why he was putting up with this, and then he prodded at the worst of the bruises until John was hard and panting and arching into Sherlock’s fingers like the painslut he was.

“Again,” John told him. “Let me finger you again while you hurt me.”

Sherlock did. Only this time, they lay side by side, Sherlock’s leg slung over John’s hip, and Sherlock sunk his teeth into one of the few unblemished bits of skin left on John’s right shoulder and rode John’s index and middle fingers like he couldn’t get enough of them, muffling his cries in John’s skin.

John felt pleasantly hazy, a muddle of pain and want. He ached in dozens of places—the skin in Sherlock’s mouth; the bruises around it; his wrist and finger, stiff from keeping still while Sherlock used them; his cock, untouched and hard and dripping.

He was ruined, he thought. Sherlock had utterly ruined him for anyone else.

“Let me cut you,” Sherlock gasped into the fresh bruise on John’s shoulder. “Please. Oh.”

“All right,” John agreed, gasping as well. “Yes.”

*

It took them days to negotiate the details: where in the flat (Sherlock’s bed), where on John’s body (his right thigh), with what (a razor blade), what Sherlock should do if John told him to stop (stop immediately and follow all of John’s subsequent instructions to the letter), what sexual acts were allowed (no penetration this first time, but everything else was on the table), what Sherlock should do in the case of an emergency (stanch the bleeding and call 999). Sherlock became increasingly impatient and stroppy, telling John that this was tedious and insipid and John’s caution was ruining the appeal of the act.

“If this goes smoothly,” John had finally snapped, “then we can see about doing things differently next time, but until you’ve shown me that you can behave, we’ll be doing this how I say we will.”

Sherlock had given him such a look of hunger, lips parting so he could swipe his tongue across the bottom one, that John had gone instantly to his knees to suck Sherlock’s prick, while Sherlock ravaged his back some more with his nails.

Sherlock hadn’t complained about the extensive negotiations again, and when the time came to put those negotiations into practice, he was perfectly behaved, waiting patiently for John to arrange the first aid supplies within reach, to undress and situate himself on the long thick towel meant to protect the duvet from blood stains, and to disinfect the skin on his upper right thigh.

It hadn’t escaped John’s notice that the part of John’s body that Sherlock had been adamant he be allowed to cut was the area where John’s scars, the ones that had started this whole thing, were located. He suspected that wasn’t a coincidence, although he had said nothing to Sherlock about it.

When John had finished the preparations, he stretched out on his back in the middle of the towel, and Sherlock stepped closer. He was still mostly dressed, wearing a dark blue dress shirt and black trousers, and it made John feel like a well-behaved sex toy to be spread out and utterly nude in front of him. It wasn’t a feeling John usually enjoyed, but he found it wasn’t terribly unpleasant now, with Sherlock staring at him like even a good locked-room murder wouldn’t sway his attention from John.

Even as John thought it, however, Sherlock began to undress, and was soon climbing onto the duvet, as nude as John, his prick already hard.

“What should I do?” he asked.

John reached for him and drew him down so John could kiss him, open-mouthed, and soon enough Sherlock got bitey, sinking his teeth into John’s bottom lip and tugging at it, growling softly.

“Good,” John murmured, voice muffled as Sherlock continued to bite, but he knew Sherlock could understand him. “Make me want it.”

Instantly, Sherlock’s hand was pawing at John’s shoulder, thumb rubbing at the bruises and bite marks there, which were fading and healing but still sore and tender enough that having them toyed with made John moan and arch. Sherlock quickly abandoned John’s lip and brought his mouth to John’s shoulder instead, worrying the now-aching skin with his teeth.

“Nails,” John told him, and Sherlock curled the fingers of his hand, resting on John’s right hip, until his fingernails were clawing at John. It felt nice, but not really what John had had in mind. “Here,” he said, and coaxed Sherlock’s hand lower, until he was scratching at the skin he’d soon be cutting. “There. Just like that.”

Sherlock made a quiet, helpless sound into John’s shoulder, and suckled gently at his bruises. It was lovely: a deep, throbbing sort of pain to supplement the sharp sting of his nails. John tipped his head back and savoured the sensation.

He wished for a moment that he hadn’t said no to penetration. How fantastic would it feel if Sherlock were sitting on John’s cock right now, squirming on it, fucking himself on it with tiny thrusts of his hips, while every other part of him was dedicated to hurting John? John would be the one making helpless sounds now, positively clinging to Sherlock.

Sherlock stopped suckling, propped himself up on one hand, the one he wasn’t still using to rake his nails up and down John’s thigh, and stared down at John. His eyes were narrowed and dark, his mouth red and shining.

“If you could see the way you look when I hurt you,” he said. “Dazed, unfocused, like everything around you has ceased to matter. All you care about is your body and what I’ve done to it.”

Sherlock abandoned John’s thigh to curl his fingers around John’s cock instead, his thumb making slow circles against the frenulum. John moaned and felt his prick twitch in Sherlock’s grip.

“Cut me,” he said.

The imperative was barely out of his mouth before Sherlock was diving for the package of razor blades, which was on the duvet near the first aid supplies. He took one out and held it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger, peering at the thin blade for a moment, before he lay down on his stomach between John’s legs and turned his attention to John’s upper right thigh.

“Er,” said John, raising himself up on his elbows to get a better look, “it’ll work better if you’re above me—”

“ _Shh_ ,” answered Sherlock. Intense concentration wrinkled his forehead as he traced a finger down the row of John’s scars. “Quick or slow?”

“Slow but not too much. I like to feel it, but don’t draw it out.”

Sherlock hummed in acknowledgement and brought the razor blade to John’s thigh, letting it rest there innocuously for a moment, before he pressed down and dragged it carefully along the skin. As always with a fresh blade, it took a moment for the pain to register. John saw the skin split, the tiny gap fill with red, before it began to sting. He lowered himself to his back with a hiss as Sherlock moved on to the second cut.

There ended up being five in all. One for each of the scars already on his thigh, John assumed, though they were deeper than Mary’s cuts. He could feel droplets of blood running down his inner thighs to the towel beneath him. Not nearly enough to indicate fatal damage, but closer. A bit closer.

“John, you’re hard,” Sherlock said, sounding awed. “You haven’t gone soft at all.”

John laughed, already feeling the faint giddiness of an endorphin rush. “No. I guess I’m more of a—”

Without warning, Sherlock brought his mouth to John’s skin, his tongue cleaning John’s upper thigh with short, kittenish swipes before he followed the tiny rivers of blood to their source and lapped at the cuts. Each pass of his tongue felt like fire licking John’s skin, and Sherlock had to grip his knee and hold him down to keep his leg from jerking involuntarily at the pain.

“Oh god,” John gasped, hands finding their way to Sherlock’s hair, knotting his fingers in it. It was twisted and filthy, and the pain was terrible; he never wanted it to stop. He wanted to shove his thigh against Sherlock’s mouth, spread his blood all over Sherlock’s lips, make it hurt worse. “Oh. Yes, please, suck it.”

Sherlock did, suckling at the stinging, burning cuts until John was whimpering, eyes squeezed closed, trapped beneath the instinct to cringe away from the pain and the desire to writhe in it until he was drowning in it.

John let go of Sherlock’s hair so he could touch himself, toss off while Sherlock hurt him. But after only a single stroke, Sherlock was snarling and wrenching himself away from John’s cuts so he could budge John’s hand from his prick. He replaced it with his mouth, gagging himself on John’s cock.

His hand gripped John’s thigh, fingertips digging into the cuts until John was crying out and arching into him, telling him, “Ah, Christ. Oh fuck, Sherlock, it _hurts_.”

With a low whine, Sherlock began to bob his head, fucking his throat frantically on John’s prick, and John was gone, pain and pleasure knotting themselves in a tight little tangle as he started to come.

Afterwards, when John’s cock was still twitching, dribbling the last bit of come, he rolled to the side and let Sherlock fuck between his thighs, feeling pleasantly hazy and perfectly content to be used if it meant Sherlock could feel even a fraction of what John did.

Sherlock clung to John like a wet sheet, moulding himself to John’s back and clutching at John’s right thigh for leverage as he rutted desperately between John’s legs. His fingers curved and clawed at the fresh cuts, reopening them all, and his mouth found the back of John’s neck. He bit down, muffling his groans in John’s skin, and John fisted the towel beneath him and couldn’t stop himself from crying “ah, ah, ah” with every thrust, which seemed only to spurn Sherlock on.

It was almost excruciating. John’s cuts burned anew, Sherlock’s teeth seemed suddenly sharper than before, and he was thrusting with all he had, doubtlessly chafing John’s inner thighs something horrible despite all the saliva he’d used as lubricant. John would be a mass of aching, throbbing, prickling pain afterwards, and it would be fantastic.

He began to feel lighter, floaty, like he could fly out of his body at any moment, and time began to move oddly, slowly down and speeding up intermittently as Sherlock continued to hurt him and fuck him, making soft, lost sounds into his neck.

By the time that John fell back into a more normal headspace, his thighs were sticky with come, and Sherlock was sighing at him and trying to roll him onto his back.

“John,” he snapped, “pay attention. You’ve moaned for days about safety and precautions, and now that I’m trying to _clean your wounds_ like you _told me to do_ , you’re being difficult. John! If you get an infection after this, you’ll never let me do it again, and that _cannot be allowed to happen_ , John, do you understand?”

“We need to work on your aftercare,” John told him, but allowed Sherlock roll him over and clean him without any further fuss.

*

Sherlock had indeed given him one cut for every pre-existing scar on his thigh, John discovered as Sherlock bandaged him. Not only that, but Sherlock had actually cut _over_ the scars so that the fresh wounds perfectly overlapped the old ones.

“Do I want to know why you did that?” he asked, although he had a suspicion already.

Sherlock didn’t glance up from his task, ensuring the bandages were spread smoothly over the cuts before he began to tape them in place. “It’s rather obvious, isn’t it?”

Suspicion confirmed. “I guess so.”

It wasn’t a new phenomenon, Sherlock getting possessive over John, but John had never felt quite so fond about it before. He considered the benefits of touching the still-stinging wounds through the bandages and wanking himself while Sherlock watched, but his refractory period wasn’t that impressive.

Instead, John crawled up the bed to the pillows to have a doze on his side while Sherlock flopped down behind him and seemed content to faff about on his phone.

Some indiscriminate amount of time later, John was startled awake by Sherlock’s hands on his bottom, pawing and squeezing and occasionally spreading him open without seeming to have any particular purpose.

“Sherlock,” John grumbled.

“We should try the riding crop next,” Sherlock told him. He dug his fingertips into the meatiest part of John’s arse and dragged them slowly up, and John realised that he was testing how well the skin there would mark. “Your arse would look extraordinary covered in welts.”

John could just imagine Mrs Hudson’s concern if she caught John waddling around the flat, his arse bruised black and purple beneath his clothes, and Lestrade’s expression when John couldn’t sit in a chair without grimacing.

But he could also imagine how Sherlock wouldn’t be able to hold back, how it would feel like John was being flayed, and he’d have to bury his face in the duvet or bite down on his knuckles to keep quiet. Maybe Sherlock would paint John’s fresh welts with come afterwards, or let John sit on his cock while his arse was on fire.

“Not today,” John told him sternly. “Or tomorrow, or even this week. I don’t fancy limping round London because you’ve beaten, cut, bitten, and scratched every inch of me. Wait until all this heals, and then… well, we’ll see.”

Sherlock made a content sound and abandoned fondling John’s bottom in favour of sidling closer and curling around him, nuzzling John’s right shoulder blade.

“Acceptable,” he declared, and pressed a firm, lingering kiss to the fresh bite mark on the back of John’s neck. John hissed in pain, and felt Sherlock smile against his skin.


End file.
